and what happened in Venezuela? They, along with the other countries with Leftist governments in South America climbed out of that Bushwhacking within a year! Within a year, they started their climb back to 5+% GDP! Why? Because, a) the Chavez government had put aside adequate cash reserves for the Bushwhacked year, 2009, and b) the government SPENT MONEY, "New Deal"-style, to stimulate the PRIVATE sector, to keep people employed, to keep DROPPING the poverty rate, to ensure food on the table and other life necessities, to maintain the educational system and all such progressive systems (which aim people at upward mobility), for infrastructure and other ECONOMY STIMULATING purposes.

As for inflation, it was FAR WORSE in the pre-Chavez years, peaking at 100% inflation! The Chavez/Maduro government significantly REDUCED inflation, and has kept it under 30% since then. They have also kept wages and pensions in pace with inflation, as the ONLY reasonable means for economic growth and development that does not serve only the 1% (such as we are experiencing). The 1%-er's are going to run out of consumers--in fact, that has already occurred here and in Europe--and it is never going to happen in Venezuela or Leftist South America. That is why their economies are growing while ours are stagnating! If you get rich by impoverishing people, you run out of consumers! Then you've got to figure out all sorts of other tricks--like speculating on people NOT being able to make their mortgage payments--in order to make digital money for a while before the whole "Wall Street"/bankster delusion comes crashing down, and has to be bailed out by making the poor POORER.

Invest in people! That is the best investment anybody can make, and when capital stops doing so, the government MUST step in for the common good.

That is what happened in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and others, all showing economic growth higher--often much higher--than the "austerity"-inflicted countries, and, what is more, blessed with the OPTIMISM that is essential for continued prosperity and wealth-sharing, AND for continued problem-solving. These countries are on the rise, while ours is stagnating and Europe is disintegrating--all because of profiteering by the greedy 1% and LACK of appropriate action by governments controlled by the greedy 1% (i.e., failure of democracy).

EVERY country has problems of one kind or another. No government or society can, or has, solved them all. The measure of a good government is their record of solving problems--like inequity and exclusion (which the Chavez/Maduro government has a GREAT record on)--and their creation of OPTIMISM in their people that problems CAN be solved. Indeed, that is what democracy is all about. Everybody KNOWS that not every problem is solvable or at least not totally solvable. The important thing is that people and their governments are TRYING. They are not obliviously IGNORING poverty, homelessness, lack of nutrition, lack of access to higher education, lack of credit for small businesses, poor wages, unfair working conditions, lack of good jobs, lack of housing, no transportation up and down hills where shantytowns have been built, no medical care, and so on--as the greedy 1% in Venezuela, for instance, did throughout their rule.

And this is WHY Venezuelans rated their own country FIFTH IN THE WORLD on their sense of well-being and future prospects. They KNOW that they can solve problems. They KNOW that they can elect a government that solves problems, because their government has done so. They are OPTIMISTIC, whereas most of our people and the people in Europe have not been so depressed about their well-being and future prospects since, oh, 1929.

I can see why the 1%-er class--the uber-rich, the billionaires and their toady corporate 'news' consortium--HATES Venezuela, which pioneered this new wealth-sharing and empowerment of the people in Latin America. They and their trumpeters never cease to stomp on Venezuela and grossly exaggerate every problem that arises that the government hasn't solved yesterday. But it's a sorry spectacle to see their propaganda here at DU, a progressive forum.